unspooling thread (it's all unraveling)
by Domenic
Summary: AU. On the inner workings of the Tapestry Room, and the royal wand.


**Title: unspooling thread (it's all unraveling)**

 **Fandom: Star Vs. the Forces of Evil**

 **Summary: AU. On the inner workings of the Tapestry Room, and the royal wand.**

 **A/N: A whole lot of speculative theorizing going on here. This relates most heavily to the episodes "Into the Wand", "Lobster Claws", "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", "Raid the Cave;" and part of the tie-in book "Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension."**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own** _ **Star Vs. the Forces of Evil**_ **.**

The Tapestry Room has grown old, with certain magical processes that will work automatically for the right triggers. But it's not without controls for certain...corrections, once enough time has passed.

Queen Moon's tapestry is fresh in the mind, raw emotion woven. The enchanted threads are too fresh, too strong for a Mewman hand to correct. The Tapestry Room's fabricating magic feeds largely on the emotions of those depicted in the image, and as long as those remain strong, little to no revising can be done. Time must pass, wait for emotions to fade, or otherwise vanish when those depicted pass away, once their minds and hearts can no longer feel.

The older tapestries—now, those can be perfected. They can become true legend, larger than mortal life. They can be distilled down to their essence, all unnecessary and unbecoming imperfections reduced or cut out.

(It's still under debate among the royal court what to do with Moon's tapestry—in a way, it is fine as is, an image of the queen's righteous fury and victory. But is it better that the monster's shock and fear remain and showcase the queen's might; or would it be more appropriate to write over his weakness with a more fearsome, unspeakable creature for the queen to triumph over? And should the queen's fury remain righteous, or become more tempered and serene? There is a trace of unseemly betrayal in the queen's rage that still slightly irks. It can be overlooked easily enough most of the time…but should someone notice it…)

No one remains with any personal recollection of, or feeling for, Queen Celena the Shy. Her majesty's mystery can be emphasized to new heights, obtaining a distant and magnificent beauty, flattened and stylized on an elegant two-tiered stage. Her tapestry in possession of a certain authority on accepting the unknown. Queen Celena the Shy is a mystery, will always be a mystery, her arcane secrets beyond anyone's comprehension. No one should question her. She is beyond doubt, beyond understanding.

Queen Solaria the Monster Carver is a thrilling image of Mewman ferocity and strength in the face of monstrous hordes, monstrous giants. Never mind the fire in the trees below, carefully pushed further down by court artists once her majesty's tapestry could be adjusted. What does it matter if the torch was laid to that overgrown mess of a forest before the monsters' rage tried to storm the Butterfly ancestral castle? It is an inconsequential detail minimized in a thrilling image, made all the more exciting by its diminishing of the unnecessary.

The Tapestry Room has not provided a stain to salvage since Eclipsa, Queen of Darkness. Even the passage of time did not make that debacle easier to mend. Eclipsa's was the first the court had ever attempted to destroy—but that was something the ancient magic of the Tapestry Room never allowed. Nothing, no touch of the torch or knife or even spellwork from the royal Wand itself could eradicate that mistake. And there was only so much correction the Tapestry Room would allow, even with time elapsing. The court did as much as they could with it, and it proved satisfactory enough—but still, they would rather no one see it, no one speak of it.

The latest heir was successfully kept ignorant of Eclipsa's tapestry until her journey into the Wand.

The Tapestry Room's ancient magics actually start in the Wand. It contains a version of the room inside, and what is first created there, appears in the physical room housed in Butterfly Castle. (Corrections Mewmans can make later are then reflected back inside the Wand's version.)

Already it has started Princess Star's, a tiny scrap of threadwork, which can be amended on the spot depending on the heir's next actions. It is not Mewman correction after the fact, it is the closest weaving can come to sketching, all thanks to the Wand's magic. It will start weaving—and the Wand may have some inkling of what's to come, but there is no one to really confirm that—and can veritably erase and redraw as it goes along, as it tries to ensnare mind and heart and their beating emotions and memories for depiction.

No heir should venture lightly into the Wand for a glimpse at a tapestry being weaved. Glossayrck is not prone to explain this: the Wand will lie.

Yes, It has sentience enough to _lie_. And to see—the Wand keeps close the fresh memory of the monster that held It once, how that allowed It to open Its eye, of Its own volition, without Queen Eclipsa's spell digging into Its power for once. And if Princess Star had not been influencing the monster, perhaps the Wand could have…well, that is recent history now.

(The Tapestry Room feeds on emotion and memory, and so is bound to that for a time, and corrections cannot be made while its original sources for strength and magic remain strong. But the Wand, where the Tapestry Room's ancient spellwork starts—well, the Wand can twist the truth on _other_ things, outside of the Tapestry Room. Not unlike what the royal Mewman court can do.)

The Wand will take on the heir's shape, and split Itself into many duplicates of the heir, and tell her this is a matter of time and memory behaving strangely and dangerously in this new territory she has invaded. Invaded. See, the Wand doesn't actually _like_ it when the heir enters It. It is enough that the Wand must ultimately perform the heir's will. If the heir dares enter...well.

The Wand will lie, to hide the fact that the Wand will simply _devour_ the heir if she stays too long. It is not future or past selves of the heir come to replace her, or whatever nonsense of time is said—that is mere deception, it is only the Wand intending to consume the heir while wearing her face.

The Wand almost had Princess Star. Almost.

To add insult to injury, she had taken _his_ finger during her escape. The Wand had _liked_ that, found some nourishment, found it _delicious_.

If only Moon the Undaunted had aimed her darkest spell better, the Wand could have devoured him _whole_. It had been so long since an heir had used one of the truly dark spells, the ones that allowed the Wand to _consume_ , to _**feed**_.

But alas, that is all recent history.

It remains to be seen if it will become _ancient_ history; and if it will be history that remains intact, or corrected.

Probably the latter. The Butterflys and _do_ like their secrets, and a truth prudently trimmed.

 **A/N: Yeah I just have a lot of suspicions about the Tapestry Room and the royal wand. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Please feel free to leave a comment, I would love to read them.**


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